Internet strong, but Wi-Fi weak? Something might be fishy.
When Wi-Fi networks in the Black Hills slow down, check first for local or regional internet outages. Western South Dakota is a land of blizzards, tornadoes, wildfires, and buffalo stampedes. Things happen. But if your internet provider's signal is strong, you'll have...
Marcus Aurelius: tech bro
Picture this. It's early Monday morning. You've driven through a blizzard on Interstate 90, with great care, because you absolutely must be at the office for a video conference with new clients. You're nervous, but prepared. You turn on your computer. You...
Asking AI a question? Say please. It’s important
Eddie Muñoz learned something weird about writing effective questions, or "prompts” for artificial intelligence engines like ChatGPT. If your prompts are polite, AI's answers might have less bias. They might have fewer mistakes and omissions, too. They might even have...
Attempted theft by phishing and phone
... a sheepish admission and lessons learned A friend recently called a member of the All Net Connect team to sheepishly admit a mistake. (To respect our friend's privacy, let's call him "Dick.") He had received an email, supposedly from Norton, the anti-virus...
CrowdStrike crash in a nutshell (or a kernel)
A line of code should have read "0000291." Instead, it read "0000000." That was it. (Sort of.) Within hours, millions of computers worldwide were "borked"*—plunged into Microsoft's "blue screen of death (BSoD)." The victims included Windows machines in the Black...
Simple as “3-2-1” (or, a photographer saves the data)
This is the golden rule for safely backing up data: 3-2-1. There's a story behind the rule. But first, here's a quick review: Keep three copies of data. Use two different media. Store a third copy off-site. Photographer Peter Krogh didn't...
Network protection in winter (which ain’t over)
In the photo above, from the blizzard of 1966, a North Dakota DOT employee stands next to power lines, which might or might not have been working.* My brother Bill asked our team if the extreme cold in South Dakota earlier this month caused any network problems for...
XDR: what is it and why should I care?
XDR stands for "extended detection and response." It's among the latest generation of tools to protect computer networks from the most sophisticated cybercriminals. XDR is especially important for businesses with small to mid-size networks because it provides...
Five ways to avoid network failures
Before All Net Connect Computer networks can be complicated, but you can avoid most network failures at most basic network level—your physical infrastructure. Network infrastructure includes things you can see. Look for potential problems with cables, cords,...
Source docs for new AI safety rules
Most people agree that artificial intelligence (AI) should be regulated. That includes politicians, talking heads, bureaucrats, businesspeople, engineers, scientists and tech bros. Even MSPs.* With that thought in...